R.L. Holdsworth

Romilly Lisle Holdsworth, commonly known as R. L. Holdsworth, was an English scholar, academic, educationalist, cricketer and a distinguished Himalayan mountaineer. He was a member of the first expedition to Kamet in 1931, which included other stalwarts such as Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe. Holdsworth, along with Shipton and Smythe, are credited with the discovery of the Valley of Flowers, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, during their return from Kamet.

Holdsworth was educated at Repton School, where he was a pupil of Victor Gollancz, later a famous publisher. He attended Repton under the headmastership of William Temple, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. He later attended the University of Oxford, where he read Literae Humaniores or Classics at Magdalen College. At Oxford he earned a Triple Blue for cricket, football and boxing. He was a first-class batsman and played cricket for Sussex, Warwickshire and Marylebone Cricket Club.

Holdsworth briefly served in the First World War as a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade in 1918 (he served until 1919), after leaving Repton.

Holdsworth held various distinguished positions in his lifetime. In 1922, he joined Harrow School as a schoolmaster. He was made the master-in-charge of cricket and played for Sussex County Cricket Club. In order to encourage ski mountaineering at Harrow, he established a club called the Marmots. After leaving Harrow in 1933, he took over as principal of Islamia College in Peshawar, Pakistan (at the time in British India), in which position he served for seven years until 1940, when he joined The Doon School in Dehradun. At Doon, he met his old colleague J. A. K. Martyn, whom he had known since his days at Harrow. Martyn was the second headmaster of Doon School.

He later retired in Somerset, England.